


Acrophobia

by squirrelfish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Suicide Imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1357393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirrelfish/pseuds/squirrelfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the prep for inception, Arthur teaches Ariadne how to shoot herself out of a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acrophobia

It’s Arthur who teaches her how to use a gun. It’s also Arthur who teaches her how to shoot herself in the head.

“It’s somewhat counterintuitive,” he says, in that dry as a bone way that signifies the unique Arthur brand of humor.

She snorts. They’re standing in the middle of a field like a sea, too endless and empty to quite be real. Sand is interspersed with the tall grass. It vaguely reminds Ariadne of her childhood somehow, and she worries she might have built from memory again without even realizing it. They’re isolated because this is Arthur’s mind, and his projections are even meaner than Cobb’s.

Ariadne’s gun feels heavy in her hand as she raises it to her temple. The muzzle is cold against her skin. Arthur is watching her with his hands in his pockets, calm. He’s wearing a gray sweater over his dress shirt and tie, not unlike when they first met. It’s been a couple months since then, and the inception job is looming close on the horizon.

“Take your time,” he says, and she’s not sure whether he’s being genuine or challenging her.

She takes a deep breath and flicks off the safety. Her finger hugs the trigger.

She pulls it.

Nothing happens.

Ariadne stands frozen for a few beats, then exhales the breath she’d been holding in an agitated huff.

“What the hell?” she says, but Arthur doesn’t look surprised.

“It’s a defense mechanism,” he says. “The mind doesn’t want to die, even in a dream. Since your mind created the gun, it jammed. Pure instincts.”

“Well how do I unjam it?” Her face feels hot. After all these weeks of mostly keeping up with these guys, she’s embarrassed to fail here.

“Just keep trying,” he says. “Visualize the bullet inside. Visualize the danger.”

She puts the gun back to her temple, holding Arthur’s gaze. She visualizes the death inside the barrel—cold, so cold. She grits her teeth.

Her hand shakes too much to pull the trigger.

“It’s ok,” says Arthur, stepping towards her. “That means you’re almost there.”

He doesn’t stop until he’s standing right in front of her, tall. She can smell his cologne. She wonders if it’s really his cologne or something her subconscious mind has supplied, and she fights a blush. He encompasses her hand and the gun in his own. His other hand carefully—perhaps even hesitantly—cups the other side of her face.

“You can do this,” he says, and she knows for certain he means it this time. It’s not a challenge. It’s not poking fun.

Ariadne pictures cold and light and pulls the trigger. Suddenly the warmth of Arthur’s hands are gone.

\- - -

She wakes up breathless and with a phantom headache. Arthur joins her amongst the living shortly after, eyeing her carefully.

“Again?” he asks. It’s more a statement than a question because he knows her well.

“Again,” Ariadne agrees, and they lie back down.

\- - -

It doesn’t take long for dying to become old hat. Ariadne has shot herself dozens of times when they go under for the umpteenth time and Arthur smiles at her, small but with a hint of mischief.

“You’ve done well,” he says, because it’s true. “But there are other ways to die, you know.”

She raises her eyebrow, because this one dimple has sprouted at the top of Arthur’s smirk and it is the most devious dimple she has ever seen.

“Let’s build the tallest building you can imagine,” he says.

They do, and when they’re at the top of it, standing amongst the clouds and with the sun bright and enormous at their backs, he grins at her and says, “Let’s jump off of it.”

“What?” she says on a laugh, because seriously, what.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to,” he says, bobbing on his heels and giving her this smug little eyebrow quirk. “Jump off something high. Sometimes I think that’s what a fear of heights really amounts to. Once you look down, you’re afraid because you want to jump.” He smiles, small and pursed. “Of course, there’s practical dreamshare application as well.”

“So this is another lesson,” she says dubiously. She approaches the edge of the building and makes the age old mistake.

She looks down.

Something does pull her, like a string in her chest. Arthur offers her his hand, quite chivalrously.

She does not trust this sneaky bastard one bit, but she does take his hand for the second time today, their fingers slowly interlocking. Like Arthur himself, his hands are long and thin, his fingers gentle.

He gives her a look, strangely uncertain for the first time. She doesn’t like it, so she steps to the edge, pulling him with her.

They jump.

It’s like her insides have dissolved and her belly is hollow like the bones of birds. She and Arthur hang there for a split moment, mismatched and connected, and then they’re falling fast. The wind turns her hair into ropes that lash her face, and her eyelids flutter, and she can barely see Arthur there beside her, his tie erupting from his sweater and dancing in the air like a snake, but she thinks she catches his eye for one split moment, and he looks so _alive_ so close to death. And that’s just Arthur isn’t it? That’s her Arthur.

And she feels it too—that desperate jubilation, the high of adrenaline and life barreling on uncontrollably. A smile stings her face, and with every ounce of her being she shouts out “Woohoo!”, screams it straight from her chest, and Arthur might be laughing but the wind gobbles it up as they fly downwards.

\- - -

When they wake up, she slaps his knee. They never really touch one another in reality so it should be weird, but she’s grinning too hard to notice.

“You’re so bad!” she says, which means she loved it.

He doesn’t sit up, simply lying back in his lawnchair with this enormous smile crinkling up his face for an instant before shrinking to a more professional size.

“Games are a good way to teach children,” he says and she slaps him again.

The warehouse is empty now. Yusuf had been there the last few times they woke up, but now even he has packed up and left. Outside, it is probably getting dark. The strange intimacy of it isn’t lost on Ariadne.

She awkwardly fingers the IV in her arm, glancing at Arthur for instruction, but he’s still lying back. His expression has become distant, thoughtful.

“There is one more lesson,” he says. “A real lesson. Are you up for it?”

She nods, lying back into her chair, but eyeing him warily. His lips quirk slightly, and he reaches over to engage the PASIV one last time.

\- - -

They’re in the sandy field again. A light breeze tickles Ariadne’s hair, reminding her briefly of their little interlude.

Arthur stands before her, his tie in its place beneath his sweater, prim and proper as always.

“This is the last thing I have to teach you,” he says frankly. “You’re nearly ready.”

A rush of pride fills Ariadne’s chest. “I’m graduating then?” she asks cheekily.

“Something like that,” says Arthur.

But he still has given no indication of what exactly this lesson is. They stand for an awkward moment as she waits for him to find the right words. Then finally he raises a finger and taps his forehead, meeting her gaze.

She nearly calls him out on being cryptic, but then she gets it.

“You want me to shoot you,” she says.

“Working in a team, you also have to be able to get your teammates out of the dream, should unforeseen obstacles arise,” he says. “Sometimes they may be rendered incapable of waking themselves at the moment you all need to get out. Sometimes it’s a mercy killing.” He lets that hang in the air.

Ariadne swallows.

“It’s good to practice,” Arthur continues. “It tends to be the hardest step, even more than shooting yourself.” He pauses, then adds fairly, “It took awhile before I could shoot Cobb the first time.”

“And stalling isn’t any good in an actual emergency.”

“That’s the crux of it, yes.”

He watches her expectantly, and slowly she manifests her gun in her hand—imagining the inner workings, the bullets, the death. Her arms are heavy as she raises them and aims right where Arthur’s finger has been, right between his eyes.

It’s just a dream.

He smiles crookedly, then as if realizing that might make things harder, he drops the smile and looks at her placid and unreadable.

She holds his gaze—his eyes are brown and sloping and his eyelashes curl above his cheek—and without a word she pulls the trigger.

Arthur falls like a ragdoll.

Immediately, she puts the gun to her own head and prepares to shoot herself out. But then she makes the age old mistake.

She looks down.

Arthur is sprawled amongst the grass awkwardly. There’s sand in his hair, and this one strand has escaped from the gelled-back neatness to splay delicately across his forehead, parallel to the line of blood that drips from the bullet hole above his nose. His brown eyes stare at nothing, no crows feet, no wrinkles, no spark of mischief and adrenaline-intoxicated life. Just death.

The back of his head is gone. It’s just skull and brain and mess.

Ariadne falls to her knees with a sound like a sob. It’s stupid, she knows it’s stupid, but she cries.

\- - -

Arthur thankfully does not join her in the dream again. He waits until she shoots herself out and wakes with dry eyes and shaking hands. He asks no questions.

The inception is in one week.


End file.
